BOYES William Edwin VX37947 A Coy [B Force]

Vic. Paybook photograph, taken on enlistment, of VX37947 Private William Edwin Boyes, 2/29th Battalion, Australian Infantry. He was one of over 2000 Allied prisoners of war (POW) held in the Sandakan POW camp in north Borneo, having been transferred there from Singapore as a part of B Force. The 1494 POW's that made up B Force, were transported from Changi on 7 July 1942 on board the tramp ship Ubi Maru, arriving in Sandakan Harbour on 18 July 1942. Private Boyes, aged 25, died as a prisoner of the Japanese on 13 July 1945. He was the son of William Henry and Frances Ellen Boyes, of Drouin, Vic. He is commemorated on the Labuan Memorial Panel 16. (Photograph copied from AWM232, items 4 and 5. Personal information from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Database.)